Theresa May's Brexit deal could lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom, the Democratic Unionist Party has warned.

The party's chief whip Sir Jeffrey Donaldson warned the deal would in the "long term" leave Northern Ireland closely aligned with the EU and could increase support for Scottish independence, saying "this is not the right Brexit".

He told BBC Radio 4's Today the Unionist party "don't fear a general election", when asked whether it would risk Jeremy Corbyn, a long-term supporter of a united Ireland.

He said: "It's not about who is prime minister, it's not about who governs the country, it's about the constitutional and economic integrity of the UK, that is fundamental for us.

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"And it is not just us, the DUP does not stand alone on this, we have many friends within the Conservative Party and indeed in some other parties, who believe this deal has the potential to lead to the break-up of the UK.

"That is not something we can support."

Remain-supporting Tory MP Anna Soubry told Today that "the best deal we have with the EU is the deal we currently have with the EU".

She said that a customs union had to go together with membership of the single market and its regulatory framework, saying "they have to be together".

She said: "If you speak... to British business they will tell you a customs union is important, but so is the regulatory alignment as well. That is what I need to see."

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Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said he believed the draft Brexit plan is "the worst deal in history".

He told ITV's Good Morning Britain: "We're giving away in excess of £40 billion in return for precisely nothing. Trapped still inside the European Union's rule book, continuing free movement of people, continuing with a foreign court having a say over our own country. Nothing has been achieved other than giving away a huge sum of money."

He described Theresa May as "not just the worst prime minister I've ever seen but perhaps the most dishonest one as well".

He added: "Get rid of her. Let's get somebody else, let's come back to the EU and say 'look, let's have a simple free trade deal or we are leaving on WTO (World Trade Organisation) terms'. And do you know what? They'll bite our arms off."

Asked what he thinks will happen next, he said: "I believe that the Cabinet will collapse, I believe that Parliament will collapse. I think we have a career political class who will put their own reselection within their parties above the interests of the nation and our democratic system."

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Shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said that Theresa May's deal was "unlikely to be a good deal for the country".

Ms Long-Bailey told Today: "Theresa May had a moral duty really, to deliver a Brexit that put quality of life of our communities right at its heart and based on the shambles we have seen I don't think this has been achieved and she has let many people around the country down today."

She was asked five times whether Brexit could be stopped, saying: "Of course it could, if it had the agreement of the European Union and the British people and the British Government.

"But that is a very, very hypothetical question looking into the future.

"Our position is to secure a good deal and if the Prime Minister cannot do that we want to see a general election so that Labour can take over negotiations."

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Andrea Leadsom, Leader of the House of Commons and Brexit supporter, said she was optimistic about a "good deal".

Doorstepped by Good Morning Britain on Wednesday, she said: "I've had a good conversation with the Prime Minster and I'm looking at the details of the deal today and I'm extremely optimistic that we'll have a good deal, but I'm looking at the details today.

Juergen Maier, UK chief executive of German engineering firm Siemens, called for a calm analysis of the deal on offer.

He told Today: "My gut feeling is that we need to get behind it and we need to make this deal work because what we need is certainty.

"It has been two very difficult years for manufacturers like ours here in the UK. We are investing hundreds of millions of pounds in British manufacturing and what we need is certainty that we can continue to invest and trade properly here.

"What we'll be looking at is the text, hopefully we'll actually get to see the text so that we can make our own judgment on that.

"The Prime Minister is very clear about where we stand on all of this. As you know we've written to her, she's very clear that we cannot be separated from the rest of the UK, either in terms of customs or indeed in terms of regulatory alignment either."

Mrs Foster went on: "Regulatory alignment would mean that we would diverge from the rest of the UK, we would stay in the single market, whereas the rest of the United Kingdom would not.

"We would have a democratic deficit insofar as we would be taking rules from the European Union and would have no way in influencing those rules.

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"It's a question of whether we're separating the union - whether we are dealing with the United Kingdom in a way that leaves us adrift in the future.

"As the leader of unionism in Northern Ireland I'm not about to agree to that."

Former Tory leader Lord Hague warned Brexiteers that if they did not accept Theresa May's deal they might not get Brexit at all, because it may bring down the Government and push support for a second referendum.

He told Today: "If you are those sceptics, the ardent Brexiteers, what you have to really worry about here is that if you don't take this opportunity to leave the EU, to get Brexit over the line, you might never leave at all.

"There is that point of view represented by (former transport minister) Jo Johnson who resigned the other day ... that the better alternative is to have a second referendum and that would mean of course deferring leaving next year.

"It would probably mean a different government, incidentally, and it would mean taking the next year over having another referendum that might not resolve matters but Brexit might never happen at all."

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Lord Hague added that a second referendum would be "the most divisive and bitter political conflict in this country in 100 years, and very economically damaging".

And he levelled a warning directly at the DUP that failing to back a deal in a Parliamentary vote because they did not like "the details" could backfire on them.

He told Today: "In the scenario you paint where the DUP refused to vote for it, where there isn't a majority in Parliament, it could go either way. You either get a no-deal Brexit or you get no Brexit at all.

"Those are not attractive alternatives to the combination of benefits ... from supporting what the PM has achieved on this.

"For the DUP, for Jeffrey Donaldson and the DUP, they advocated leaving the EU, they also have to face up to the fact that if they vote down a deal because they are not happy with the details, well, the consequences may be that Brexit never happens."

The temporary customs union is not "part of a cunning plan of the devious Europeans to keep the UK in a customs union forever", according to Sophie in 't Veld, a Dutch MP who is the deputy to the European Parliament's chief negotiator Guy Verhofstadt.

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She told Today that "we don't do (these) kind of conspiracies", and added: "None of us, neither you or I, have actually read the document, but from what we hear this is going to be part of the backstop solution and a new relationship will have to be negotiated between the UK and the EU.

"It all depends on how the negotiations proceed.

"The real problem doesn't lie there. The real problem lies within the UK, within the Government, within the Tory party, between the parties, because there has not been any agreement over the relationship with the EU between any of them over the last two years.

"That is the real problem, because if the UK had a single agreed line, backed by the majority of parties and the majority of MPs, then the whole situation would not be so unclear."

Mark Francois, deputy chairman of the Brexiteer European Research Group, warned Cabinet ministers that today they would be making "the most important decision they ever make in their whole lives".

He told Today he thought there was a chance of some resigning, but would not be drawn on how many, saying Theresa May's deal "is not Brexit, that is not what 17.4 million people in this country voted for".

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The Rayleigh and Wickford MP said: "People around the Cabinet table, in their heart of hearts, know that.

"We and the rest of the country will be watching very carefully to see what happens at Cabinet today, but there are a number of Cabinet ministers who deep down very much oppose this.

"They will have to look into their hearts and decide whether a Jaguar and a red box and a bunch of sycophantic civil servants calling you 'Minister' is more important that the destiny of your country."